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Iman Fasil
Born Gaultier de Savoie, French knight, Fasil was a firm believer in the Christian God and was among the leaders of the third "Holy Crusade" against the Infidels who allegedly held Jerusalem prisoner. He constantly preached to his men that they were God's right hand, warriors of righteousness. However, his faith faltered when he was taken prisoner by the Muslims and came in contact with the Arab culture and civilisation. He was taken to Damascus as a slave, and there, after learning not only Arab but Persian - perhaps the most melifluous language ever created for poetry! - and reading the Koran, Gaultier found there were many ways to love God and discovered his love for Allah. And maybe falling for one of the Sultan's handmaidens helped too. Anyway, Gaultier converted to Islam, rejected the Christian god and was welcomed with open arms into Saladin's court. His name was now Iman ("faith") Fasil ibn Said, after the Muslim who taught the Koran to him. Fasil had no qualms about betraying his fellow countrymen since they pillaged and raped their way across the whole country, behaving like the savages they were. On Saladin's side, Fasil had the promise of paradise after his death, if he behaved like a good believer and a good soldier. Then came the year of glory for Saladin when he got the upper hand on the French army, starting with the Battle of Hittin and ending with the reconquest of Jerusalem. Unfortunately, Fasil wouldn't enjoy this victory much, as a Crusader sword stabbed him in the chest ... and that was the end of Iman Fasil's pre-immortal life. It would be an understatement to write that Fasil felt disgruntled about coming back to life: he found himself with no reward, even though he had done the proper thing and died, a martyr, on the field of battle. Where was the paradise promised? Where were his fifty houris, his eternal reward? Fasil was looking forward to fighting the good fight, to repaying Saladin for his kindness and generosity, even to dying in Saladin's name. He had been a true believer, after all. But no. Fasil was alive, and well aware he had been killed. And been cheated of his prospect of paradise. What a joke it was ! Fasil came back to his master among those soldiers who had survived Hittin and felt for the first time the presence of an immortal : his mentor turned out to be Said (aka Haroun al-Rashid) a fellow immortal, himself one thousand years old. Haroun instructed him in the Game, told him that his immortality was not only a proof that Allah existed but also that he was doing his will. Fasil took this to heart and went on fighting for the Saracens until the year 1229 when Al-Kamel delivered Jerusalem to the Emperor Frederic II. This triggered an outcry of indignation throughout the Arab world. Fasil, disillusioned and weary of war, felt he had done his part in Allah's name. He was ready for peace. Fasil's chronicles during this period reveal a deeply divided soul. His belief in Allah still held firm. As a good Muslim, he knew that paradise awaited his mortal companions - if they died fighting for their faith. But by this time, Fasil had died on various battlefields a dozen, a score of martyr's deaths. Each time, he was returned to the blood and muck of an unending war. Was this all that immortality meant? While still loving Allah, Fasil decided he should explore the vast world and followed his mentor Haroun to southern Europe, toward Spain. En route, Haroun died, losing his head to Haresh Clay; the Moor gained a ferocious ennemy who would hunt him for the eight following centuries. In Toledo, around 1592, Fasil made a new friend in the person of Armando Torres, a former student of Don Quixote and a dreamer, a master swordsmith who taught Fasil about the Renaissance in Europe and who presented him with a beautiful gift when Fasil married his foster-daughter Constanza: a Toledo Salamanca rapier, a wonder of a weapon which Fasil used until his death. I think that period was the happiest of his life, considering the hell he went though in later years. This is not counting the lost century when he vanished in 1799, and was not identified by any Watchers for almost a hundred years; our researchers are of the opinion that he was in the Himalayas, but his adventures there are unknown. After thirty years of marriage and the death of his beloved wife, Fasil wandered back to Syria, finding the country changed and settled in Istanbul for almost half a century. There, after three changes of identity (Don Diego Torres y Sanchez, Fasil Say, Al Rahman), he became captain of the city's guard until a fatal wound forced him to flee the locale. In 1640 Iman moved to Florence, Italy hiring himself as mercenary sword until a fateful encounter that changed the course of his life. The Kurgan had been rampaging through the city for over a week and had killed half the immortals living there (the other half having fled); Fasil decided to obey Allah's will one more time and to protect the city from the Russian behemoth. Fortunately for Fasil, the battle was inconclusive. He was certainly overmatched and would have died at the Kurgan's hands; in fact, no Watcher knows why he survived. It is recorded that the challenge devolved into a running fight - with Fasil running for his life, and the Kurgan pursuing - which eventually ended in a cemetery. Both immortals entered a crypt, remaining there some time. When they emerged, they went their seperate ways. The reason why? This is just one of the mysteries of the Game. No one knows what the Kurgan told Fasil, mewed up with him in the darkness of a tomb, but it became obvious the Kurgan had put the fear of God into him, so to speak. From that day forward, Fasil became an active participant in the Game, killing with abandon, gaining ferocious enemies and killing people who might have been his friends in other circumstances. He met both Connor and Duncan MacLeod and started a feud with them after killing a young protege of Connor's. Fasil felt more and more that his life had turned into a black joke and felt less and less the presence of Allah in his heart. In 1656 he went to the immortal Hamza el-Kahir for counsel and advice, and maybe could have found some peace if not for the interference of Duncan MacLeod and for Xavier St.Cloud taking Hamza's head. After that, Fasil gave up his faith in his beloved God and hired himself out to circuses around Europe, working as an acrobat. He did various jobs, took several heads and even fought Connor on three separate occasions. The fourth time they met was the last. Yet, before that, Fasil had regained a bit of the person he used to be: meeting Charles Mako ("the law is all that separates man from the animal") and Carmina La Morte ("You are but a shadow of the man you were. Good lord, get a life !") apparently did him good, because he did afterwards return with renewed faith to his religion. He continued playing the Game, but succeeded at putting his life together. Lately, he worked in law enforcement in Damascus, again a believer in Allah who had never abandoned him after all. And then he felt a strange pull to New York and sadly met his end there. Category:Immortals Category:Males Category:Deceased individuals